Materials

Safety Tips

Watch out for this sign . It means adult help is needed for the particular step.

Steps

1.

Prepare the box

Scout around for a shoebox or similar-sized box. A larger box gives you more space to work with and allows you to put in more details.

If you're using a box other than a shoebox, cut out the front panel. Use tape or glue gun to fix any open flaps in place.

2.

Plan the landscape and paint the box

Paint on a snowy background and additional details such as clouds or falling snow. Paint the ground white for a snowy landscape and include a body of water to show how integral the sea is to polar life. You can also paint the outside of the box if you like.

Instead of painting the box, you can also cover the inside of the box with colored paper. Details such as snowy mountains or bodies of water can also be cut out of paper and glued onto the background or foreground.

3.

Draw or print out the animals

Draw the animals, cut them out from magazines, or print out online images. You can also print out these polar animal sets on A4 or Letter size card stock.

4.

Color and cut out the animals

Color and cut out the animal print-outs or drawings. The paper animals should be able to stand up so use card stock for printing them out or draw them on construction paper. Magazine animal cut-outs should be glued onto cardboard or any heavy paper to make them sturdier.

5.

Background animals

Plan where to position the animals in your diorama. You can glue on some of the animals onto the background.

6.

Create paper tabs

Make side, bottom, or center tabs for the rest of the animals. These will allow the animals to be attached to the bottom and/or sides of your box. There are a number of ways to make the tabs:

a.) Make L-shaped paper tabs and glue these at the back of the animal's legs (bottom tabs) and/or sides (side tabs).

b.) Incorporate the tabs into foreground elements such as grass, rocks, or snow. Draw the foreground element, including the tabs (shown in shaded area). Cut out the whole piece and glue it at the base of the animal's legs. Fold the tabs towards the back.

c.) Not in photo: Draw side and/or bottom tabs before cutting out your animals in Step 4.

7.

Position the animals

Position the animals inside your diorama. Glue the tabs to the bottom and/or sides of the box.

Without tabs, you can still position the animals on your diorama by gluing them atop objects like paper bowls, styrofoam chunks, paper cups, paper egg carton sections, and small boxes. This seal was glued on top of half-a-paper bowl, making it look like it is resting on top of a slab of ice.

8.

Finishing touches

To complete this Arctic diorama, cotton was glued onto the foreground to create a snowy ground.

More Ideas

There are many creative ways to make a shoebox into a diorama. For instance, the lid for this box was not removed. Instead it was used to create an underwater scene, showing how important marine life is to the Antarctic.